I’ll have to make this post short and sweet. I say that but then it’ll probably be a marathon post. I need to leave work so that I can finish packing and fly out to Portland tonight. I am leaving my little Paquito for the first time since Adi and Miely have been gone. =(

Last weekend I finished the two larger projects I’ve been working on for the last couple of months. I finished my gift project that I’ll share when I get back, and my Road to Golden sweater.

Pattern: Road to Golden from Knit Scene Fall 2007 (??)

Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, for all colors except for the golden/mustard color is Cascade 220.

[Ravelry kind of takes the excitement out of listing details on a blog, doesn’t it?]

The sweater was supposed to be my Ravelolympics projects, but the first yellow color I got was way too light and I had to find an alternative. The sleeves and main color took way less than I anticipated, but I did run out of dark green and light green during knitting. I made the medium size, which should have maybe 3-4″ of ease. More than I’d usually go for. The only real change that I made was to continue the neck decreases through the garter ridges. And to go down 2 needle sizes and bind off a little tightly. The first time it was so loose, like a super short cowl neck!

It took about four days to dry, with our current rainy weather. Including 15 minutes of drying with a blow dryer. I am very happy with the fit and everything. All around a successful project.

I’m running behind and don’t want to save this as a draft, so here’s some more pictures.

Ignore my stupid talking face:

Close-up of the patterning. I can’t even see that purple from far away.

I’ll have some more Christmas presents to share later. I have devoted a lot of time to figuring out my knitting projects for this week. I have my Special Olympics scarves to work on, a handspun hat and fingerless glove set for my friend Jere who is driving me to the airport and watching my cat, and “Elaine’s Blouse” from the latest Interweave Winter 2008. It may be a bad idea to take a sweater’s worth of yarn with me when space is at a premium, but I wasn’t happy with my yarn choice for knee socks.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and I’ll see you again in the New Year!